Gareth A Davies has been a sports journalist for The Daily Telegraph since 1993. He is Boxing and MMA Correspondent. Has been intrigued by fight and combat sports from a young age. Personal sporting passions are rugby, cricket, and martial arts. Also covers the Paralympic Games. Hates getting his hair cut. Follow on Twitter @GarethADaviesDT

Paralympian David Weir: Mean…moody…magnificent ahead of Virgin London Marathon

A few years ago, David Weir would unwind by spending weekends when he wasn't wheelchair racing DJ-ing House music at underground clubs in Croydon. Now, 'Tough of The Track' is only focused on gold in London. On Sunday morning, he goes for a sixth London Wheelchair Marathon title.

Outside wheelchair racing, he loves football and boxing. He's an Arsenal fan. Weir was born disabled. He used to walk with callipers and started secondary school still using them, then better wheelchairs came through.

Although his parents had always encouraged him not to have a chair, he's now glad he got into one, because he is regarded as the best in the world, all-round, in the deepest talent pool in Paralympic Sport. Eight heats at the Games. Forty men in the 400m with qualifying times within a second of each other. Any man can win the Para Gold in the 400m event.

Growing up, the fact that his legs did not work like all the other kids never stopped him. He went in goal in the football games, and in the playground, he'd sit on the floor in goal. On the council estate where he grew up, he was always out with his mates, climbing trees, doing all the things that kids normally do growing up.

At school, he played everything from wheelchair hockey, basketball, cricket, to football with able-bodied kids. The turning point for him came in 1992 when he raced i Adelaide at the Junior World Games, and took part in swimming, racing, and wheelchair basketball for Great Britain.

He reckons without wheelchair racing, he would probably have been 'a bum'. Outside sport, it would be something outdoors, or using his hands. A welder, he reckons.

Weir will be a star in London, nailed down. He is a working class London hero of the GB Paralympic team. A no nonsense senior member of the team, and the defender of two Paralympic gold medals, hard-earned in Beijing, but 12 years in the making.

Winning at the Paralympic Games, it seems, is the only real way of gaining recognition in the media.

The Beijing Games double gold medallist admits that Paralympic success is everything. Man and chair, power, balance and aerodynamics. Racing chairs cost around £3,000 and are custom-built, using the latest carbon-fibre technology.His racing chair, called a Draft Racing Wheelchair, weighs around seven kilograms with the wheels included. It is one of the lightest chairs in the world.It never bothered Weir that media coverage tended to be sporadic. He was all about crafting his own art.

Weir reckons his success comes from desire. "The desire to win overcomes everything." Then I found myself in conversation with Weir, and his greatest rival in the London Marathon this weekend – Josh Cassidy, from the USA. The subject ? Cage-fighting.

Both men have close friends involved in the sport. Weir has his tattoos; Cassidy the Mohawk. They'll battle it out on Sunday morning, push, push, slipstream, then sprint. Then have a beer together in the evening.